Arqana is a

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition e ...

house that operates

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

auctions including the ''Ventes de Deauville'', one of the world's largest auctions for

thoroughbred The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are ...

yearlings, which is held in August of each year in

Deauville Deauville () is a commune in the Calvados department, Normandy, northwestern France. Major attractions include its harbour, race course, marinas, conference centre, villas, Grand Casino, and sumptuous hotels. The first Deauville Asian Film F ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Created by the merger of auctioneers L'Agence Française de Vente du Pur-sang and Goffs France, Arqana is headed by chairman Georges Rimaud. The company's majority shareholder is the

Aga Khan IV Shāh Karim al-Husayni (born 13 December 1936), known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Ismaili followers and elsewhere as Aga Khan IV, is the 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailis, a denomination within Shia Islam. He ha ...

, France's biggest thoroughbred owner-breeder. A consortium of French

breeders A breeder is a person who selectively breeds carefully selected mates, normally of the same breed to sexually reproduce offspring with specific, consistently replicable qualities and characteristics. This might be as a farmer, agriculturalist, o ...

owns approximately 30 percent with the remainder owned by Artcurial, the art auction house subsidiary of the

Dassault Group Dassault Group (; also GIM Dassault or Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SAS) is a French corporate group, group of companies established in 1929 with the creation of Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (now Dassault Aviation) by Marcel Dassault, a ...

. According to the Bloodhorse Market Watch, the Deauville auction in August is the best place to find Grade/Group I winners.

References

Los Angeles Times article on Ventes de Deauville
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Deauville Sales official website
(French & English languages)
Goffs France S.A. official website
(French & English languages) Horse auction houses French auction houses Horse racing in France